


zero percent

by sundowns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Time Skip, Skydiving, Travel, seijou third year shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundowns/pseuds/sundowns
Summary: On Oikawa Tooru’s approach to the times and troubles of obliterating his feelings for ex-boyfriend Iwaizumi Hajime to zero percent. (And the woes of surging back to a hundred in the free fall.)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 24
Kudos: 154





	zero percent

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday oikawa! love u homie

**_5%_** _— El Piso, San Juan. Noviembre de 202x._

By the third night of their trip, the room’s a mess.

Iwaizumi has been lamenting why a pro athlete like Oikawa Tooru, with the six-digit paycheck, would live in a studio apartment among anywhere decent attainable.

Past midnight vibes and traces of jetlagged eyes, four bodies lay on the floor in a messy sprawl—their poor efforts to sardine themselves in Oikawa’s crib only earning grumbles and the casual yelling. Night liveliness ricochets outside windows and through dry walls, but nothing seems to smother the ruckus in the aftermath per round of a spinning bottle.

So the moment _dare_ comes out of the safe of Oikawa’s mouth, he knows he’s done for—an afterthought comes in digging himself a grave at a nearby _cementerio_.

And then another afterthought takes over that afterthought; something that goes by:

_“So now you’re boasting about your lack of Spanish vocabulary? Give me a sample.”_

_“Cementerio.”_

_Oikawa hears silence on the other side, and then Iwaizumi guffaws a confused “huh?”_

“Then I dare you to answer,” Hanamaki starts, and they all simultaneously mutter foreboding _oh no_ es.

“I think I’m gonna have to take it back.”

“No taking back. This isn’t a retail store.”

Matsukawa is enthusiastic in the undertone, palm under his chin as he leans in interest. “I’m waiting.”

“Do you still have romantic feelings for Iwaizumi?”

“Oh, _wow_.”

 _Quite a bold question, and certainly uncalled for._ Oikawa curses for no one to hear and facepalms in actuality. (And on the follow-up, he reprimands himself for that reaction, because it’s totally unneeded, because rule number one says: _indifference_ ).

“Seriously? On God?”

In his peripheral vision, it’s not unnoticeable how Iwaizumi freezes in the most minute way.

Matsukawa shrugs, and there’s amusement clear past his alcohol-induced stance. “Might as well play truth or truth.”

“Hey, this is a personal matter and none of your—”

“We’re half-drunk, on the other side of the world, people are dancing and all, the lights are up, _everywhere_. No one knows us. Spin the bottle is always personal.” He points at Oikawa, and it’s one that’s malicious. “And you asked me when I last did it.”

Matsukawa takes a long swig of the remaining wine from the bottle, free hand raised, and Oikawa almost worries he’ll shut down for good. “Excuse me. Is rephrasing allowed?”

“Okay, let’s rephrase,” Hanamaki takes it on, grinning as he refuses to let the tables turn. “So, exactly _how many percent_ left of those feelings?”

Oikawa _hates_ inquisition for accuracy. With that, he has to spend more than half his brain scaling or dividing bits into fractions, and by how specific it is, he pales even more. His alertness pulverizes whatever wine or wine-induced steak that remains in his body. Cursing the heavens is the last thing he wants to pay heed to, because he really went his way, full-on, for this _trip_ to relax, get quality time with friends, and not suffer _by friends_.

“What kind of question is that?”

“An interrogation of a curious man,” Hanamaki says, as-a-matter-of-factly. Oikawa is now a second away from jumping at him. “I'm being as ambiguous as possible.”

“But this is bullying!”

Matsukawa hums. “I wouldn’t say so by my own standards.”

“How the fuck is that any different,” Iwaizumi hisses, the underlying tone of a mix of embarrassment and uneasiness not to miss, and cradles the first kicks of a throbbing temple. “You guys are really—”

“Come on, Oikawa, Iwaizumi. It’s been more than two years for you to even flinch. Entertain us a little.”

“Isn’t Oikawa supposed to be the one in question? Why the hell am I included?”

“It’s not like you haven’t played truth or dare before? Everything involves two or more people in here. Wait,” Hanamaki pauses to recollect, and at the remembrance of something releases a high-pitched cackle, curling forward, hands clapping and slippered soles thwacking on the timber floor. “You two even _made out_ before.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Matsukawa doubles over, before he raises his hand up once again. “ _Correction_. All of us did.”

Oikawa gags. “I did _not_. At least with the rest of you two.”

“You’re admitting it with Iwaizumi, then.”

“Okay, I’m done. I’m sleeping—”

“Wait, Iwaizumi—”

“My head is _throbbing_.”

Matsukawa, for the third time in a row, lifts his hand up, now with his fingers wiggling. “Which head?”

“Oh my god. Imagine how sick I am,” Oikawa groans, pleading Hanamaki, or maybe anyone else in the room to just _listen_. “Can I switch to truth instead?”

“Then I truth you to answer it.”

“Fuck’s _sake_ —”

“I _truth_ you. Or you’re paying _or refunding_ , in this case, my and Mattsun’s plane ticket back home,” Hanamaki slurs, unfocused eyes squinting at him, and at that moment, Oikawa can pretty much confirm he is three-fourths drunk and into the verge of death.

“You all sound like a bunch of untamed, potty-mouthed kids. And I'm in hot seat.”

“I’m not.” Iwaizumi interrupts, flippant, and goes back to his sitting place. “So _please_ , let's get this over and done with.”

“Why are you deciding more than I should, Iwa-chan? You're supposed to be indifferent to this.”

“Jesus Christ, Oikawa,” he throws his hands in exasperation. “Just answer the goddamn question?”

Hanamaki winces and makes an offhanded comment. “Jesus Christ and Oikawa in one sentence seem unlikely to me.”

“I think you stepped on a landmine, Makki. They’re going to kill each other at this point.”

“They’re drunk; it’s normal. They’d kill each other even when they’re not.”

“Okay, fine,” Oikawa lifts both palms in defeat. “Don't get mad.”

“Why would I—” Iwaizumi snorts then mutters the rest. “For the record, I’m _not_ drunk.”

“Okay,” Oikawa pretends to be in a long thought, and when Hanamaki calls him out that delaying will only result to a suspected denial, he abruptly responds, “Okay! Maybe a little less than five percent?”

“ _Ouch_.”

“I don't know where _that_ was pointed to, Makki,” Matsukawa whistles. “That he hasn’t moved on yet or that he’s yet about to move on.”

Hanamaki guffaws in amusement, smacking Matsukawa’s low five, and strangely enough, the alcohol seeming as if it’s slipped off of him. “Wow, two years… and it’s _that_? What do you even call that?”

“Not even in the DABDA anymore. Sounds like a _yikes_ phase to me.”

“Let's not,” Iwaizumi warns, rubbing the underside of his nose with his wrist.

“You guys are gross. Just imagine how Iwa-chan would feel?”

“In a mood for a murder spree.” He snorts, wrist now rubbing at his eyes. “I’ll kill you all. Especially you, Mattsun.”

“Why do I get blamed of all the shit Makki does? I am being a completely curious, innocent human being here.”

“Yes, so can you all give me some slack, please?”

“Alright.” Iwaizumi stands up to plop on Oikawa’s unmade bed since two days ago. “I’m sleeping and if anyone is to disturb me, you’re riding the plane back home while you’re in a casket.”

“Iwa-chan, visitors are strictly prohibited from my bed.”

“I’m not a visitor,” he mutters, pulls one of the pillows from the headboard, and nuzzles into it. Oikawa stares and kind of agrees.

Iwaizumi does look like someone who’s lived in this studio apartment long enough for the surroundings to let him blend in.

_—_

**_14%_** _— Viñas del Sol, San Juan. Noviembre de 202x._

The first time they talk alone since they got reunited in San Juan, Hanamaki and Matsukawa are out to buy them a good sum of canned _yerba mate_ enough to grandly end the night, and insist they both stay behind.

“But why?”

“Because, locals need to let the tourists get lost a little, so let us be.”

“And? What about me?” Iwaizumi counters, stretched arms gesturing to himself.

“You’re not a tourist. You’ve been here several times.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll show you around your remaining week trip,” Hanamaki adds up. “Perks of being a local’s best friend, I guess.”

 _A local’s best friend_ , the thought buzzes under Oikawa’s train of thoughts, which he thinks is funny, and then a quick flash follows.

_(“Should we worry about you two?”_

_“No, besides… best friends. That’s us. Reconciliation should be easy, shouldn’t it be?”)_

“So. How are you doin’?”

It’s a strange question to take in, much less coming from a person he used to constantly talk to, with those anticipated movements and coincidental occurrences, and who, more often than not, knows what he doesn’t, but then he guesses that’s the way human chemistry works, and that maybe the six-thousand miles had stretched whatever distance they had into a distance of what should be.

“All of a sudden?” Oikawa snorts a chuckle, feeling ridiculous in a sense but even so nodding to a response. “Great.”

“Congratulations, by the way.”

“For what?”

Iwaizumi shrugs. “For being on off-season.”

“Oh.” Comes out that ridiculous snort. “I thought it was something else. Thanks, Iwa-chan.”

“What were you thinking then?”

“Oh, nothing else actually.”

“Debatable. Pretty sure there must be something,” Iwaizumi murmurs, and Oikawa catches a yawn before it comes out.

“You know what? You ask such basic questions, and we always end up going round and round and round with these _debatables_ , and nothing ever makes sense.”

Iwaizumi startles in his stance, wary in a very un-Iwa-chan manner, and he grunts at the familiarity of such frankness. “Like that’s anything new. Isn’t that us? We start off basic and we end off stupid.”

_We’ve always been like that._

This makes Oikawa crack up, on many ways it hurts his sides, although with an amount he can only disregard.

_We, huh?_

“Once again, you know what? Damn you. Who is this guy I’m talking to?”

Iwaizumi follows suit in loosening up, arms on the banister, and looks up at the cloudless Argentine sky.

“No, but really though.” Then he glances at him with patent honesty Oikawa can barely brain; he doesn’t know how he does it. “Are you happy?”

_Well, I don’t like you anymore. And I know in many worlds I don’t._

“Sure,” he shrugs a kind of heaviness off of his shoulders, and it’s _weird._ “I’ve become more like it, gotten the hang of it…being homesick and stuff. It was surprisingly easy.” And it was. _Is that so?_ Iwaizumi throws in.

Because learning the ropes of shutting out the longing for the past involves sweat, the court, and abandoning the past itself.

“And Iwa-chan?”

“About some things, I guess. I got a few factors enough to make me.”

“Is that so?” Oikawa counters, pushing out a small smile and mulling over _certain factors_. “I’m glad.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

“That people become happy off of other people’s happiness.”

 _Going round and round and round again_. Oikawa spaces out, no thoughts other than thinking about how easily calm it is being around him, the six-thousand-mile distance and _oh noes_ be damned.

“Because, you know, it’s a given,” Iwaizumi tells him by _one breath in, one breath out._ “...that no matter where you’ll be, that’s where my heart goes.”

It’s a mystery how he says it with trepid calmness to him, but Oikawa has known him for many, many years (and maybe years before anything else) to know his numerous undercurrents and it rings true to his ears, this _genuine contentment_. Maybe the sudden ache that shoots up his gut is a yearning for something long gone; maybe he hates it, but maybe he also welcomes it subliminally.

_(“Are we gonna be okay?”_

_“Maybe not everyday… but constantly.”)_

“It’s a constant, right?”

_Because where in most worlds nothing's left, in one world it persists as it is._

Oikawa makes out of the feeling, and it’s the kind of scab where as long that he so as touches it, there’s an itch akin to a forewarning of an irritation, sometimes it clings to him like rash with no room for nothing but soreness. In worst case scenarios, it could be bleeding.

 _Well, who knows about the natural or cosmic forces?_ _It might be more than five percent of whatever the hell this is—_ _the six-thousand-mile distance and oh noes be damned._

He clicks his tongue, and Iwaizumi glances at him, mouth halfway into delivering words.

_But it doesn't have to mean anything of course, because we will always remain this way._

“But, isn’t that us, Oikawa? Being constant.”

He looks at him not looking at him, and muses on the reasons of what makes Iwaizumi Hajime the way he is; but he guesses he’s like that too—just constant and something he can never abandon.

“Yeah.”

_—_

**_17.5%_** _—La Boca; San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Noviembre de 202x._

The ride to Buenos Aires has his thoughts thrown to bus trips back in high school. All because he’s napping leisurely on Iwaizumi’s shoulder and giving in to his offers of “sleeping like before”. It can be a pain in the ass sitting in one spot, _thirteen hours long at that_ , but it’s a cheaper option, and Iwaizumi has bid him into several positions of one-armed hugs specifically for naps just so he can sleep.

Maybe so to say: _we were best friends before, and best friends ‘til now, so nothing should sway anyone, not even that bus ticket lady._

There’s a pause and a sigh.

_You really are rotten to the core, Tooru._

Before long, the _Obelisco_ of Buenos Aires comes into view, where by the moment they get off, neither of them says anything about it, and his head lays no other thoughts than how Iwaizumi is still able to keep using his usual Japanese brand of detergent, even back up there. Even for someone as sturdy-looking as him, sun tanned to perfection like the Californian that he is, he smells like milk.

There are two things Oikawa likes best about the life in Buenos Aires. One, they serve coffee in a wine glass.

And two, the apartment units have PIN coded door locks to each their rooms.

Passing by loud _saluds_ and zealous tangos in La Boca, Iwaizumi wordlessly slides Oikawa his PIN in a form of a scribbled tissue paper.

“If you need anything.”

It shouldn’t be something worth of a surprise factor, so in return, Oikawa types his and sends it to him by text message.

Iwaizumi gets dragged into a random tango mob along with Hanamaki, and it’s the most horrendously amusing sight one ever gets to witness. While Hanamaki’s doing great and at least enjoying the attention, it’s a disaster for Iwaizumi. With both his left feet, the lady almost stabs his toe with his heel, but he laughs it off along with everyone else watching—Oikawa even gets secondhand embarrassment. Iwaizumi couldn’t even dare hold her bare back, fingers hovering over what he shouldn’t touch, and it’s such an _Iwa-chan_ manner.

“Iwa-chan you were a tragedy!”

“I don’t think I have ever embarrassed myself in _years_ before this.”

They roam along San Telmo Market post lunch and post tango mob, and the casual hand touching shouldn’t be worth second-guessing with the crowd going back and forth before them like ocean waves. There’s often a hand on Oikawa’s elbow whenever he gets stuck too long to one stall, because at this point he’s _going to buy the whole damn market if he doesn’t stop_.

“Well, aren’t you going to buy souvenirs?”

“No,” Iwaizumi responds before quickly revising his decision. “Ah, maybe for mom.”

Like he said, all he does buy by the time they reached the far end accumulates to a linen table cloth (for his mom) and additionally a wooden wine stand (for his dad). Oikawa has at least three eco bags dangling on his shoulders at this point.

“Hey, can you stay here for a minute?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m getting something. Hold on,” he announces, and before Oikawa can prod, his back wanes into the crowd.

Except he doesn’t completely disappear—Oikawa can still clearly hear his voice amidst the noise of a thousand people (like he’s all he ever hears), conversing in a perfect American English. And before he knows it, there’s a hand on his hip and Iwaizumi comes into view.

“What did you get?”

“Nothing special.” In his open palm, a stone necklace sits right there. It _indeed_ is nothing special; he’s seen it dozens of times after all. “The dude said the stone is from Patagonia. Want it?”

“I mean,” Oikawa stutters, _half-chokes_ , at this lame, if not usual, attempt of Iwaizumi Hajime gifting him a souvenir. _How strange of a local receiving a local souvenir;_ a memorabilia for the decades. “Well, I haven’t been to Patagonia.”

“You mean to say you’ve been a fake local all this time.”

“Patagonia is so far!”

In the midst of the mob of people, upon the noise of talks and the noise of commotion, Oikawa gets a necklace hanging down his neck, and perhaps traces of warm fingers dancing along his nape.

Iwaizumi smirks as he studies him, head nodding in some sort of self-affirmation.

“Suits you.” Eyes meet his before they’re gone, and the view disperses into moving heads. “Argentina suits you.”

_—_

**_30%_** _— Bar Sur, Buenos Aires. Noviembre de 202x._

“Oh, did you guys know Happy Together was also filmed in here?”

“Ah, yes... the one with Leslie Cheung.”

“Wait, it was in _here_?”

“Yeah, where Tony worked.”

“Makki, how could you not know? This place was the highlight of the movie.”

“He watches films without processing what goes around. All in his head are just numbers and the next payday.”

_Click. Flash._

In Bar Sur, Iwaizumi doesn’t get dragged into a tango mob this time, but he does get pulled in by the female pro dancer for a picture-taking. Even with his brief experience back in La Boca, he is _beyond_ awkward when he gets into position that Oikawa gets his second dose of secondhand embarrassment.

Though before anything settles into picture-perfect perfection, he slightly loses balance from the sudden weight when the woman leans onto him and sits on his bended leg.

“He’s so awkward it pains me.”

Mastukawa smirks. “I bet you wanna be in that woman’s position though.”

 _I’ve been in that position many times_ , Oikawa provides smugly albeit it’s ironically all in his head. And it’s like the atmosphere is mocking him, because Iwaizumi makes eye-contact before he turns to face his momentary partner. _Maybe a little too close to an inch apart_ , and it makes Oikawa subconsciously cringe.

The flash comes, the view disperses.

Iwaizumi walks back to their table, sweating and sort of out of breath.

Matsukawa snorts. “You’re red.”

“Well, I haven’t been _that_ close with someone,” he defends and then revises quietly, like an afterthought. “With a woman, I mean.”

In some background noise wherever it may be, Oikawa hears a well-known pattern of guitar strums that awakens something he’s once put behind. He twirls the leftover wine in his glass, wondering why he has to ponder over such statement so much where it makes his stomach roil. It could be his rare cooked steak, but then again it doesn’t matter when he suddenly wants to go home. It’s past the hour where his head should be intact enough to rationalize things.

He puts his unfinished drink down and stands up from his seat.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” Not exactly home, but it’s the first thing he thinks of. “I’m not feeling too well.” Hanamaki frowns.

“What about the—you promised you’d go around San Telmo with us.”

“Iwa-chan will guide you there.”

Then that Iwa-chan holds on his wrist. “Hey, are you okay?”

“It’s probably something I ate at La Brigada.”

And on impulse, he stands up, and Iwaizumi’s hand still remains clamped around his wrist. “Here, I’ll walk you back.”

“ _No_ ,” Oikawa refutes, more wary than declining, and slowly, he shakes his head. “Thanks. It’s fine.”

Fingers loosen from his wrist, and he does not look back as he stumbles through a couple of tables. He disappears through the exit and into the night’s fresh air.

It’s embarrassing—his impulsiveness—it makes him seem suspicious and it makes him curse.

“So, did the thing back there make you feel things?”

Oikawa jumps at the presence, but it doesn’t take one glancing to know who it is. “Who sent you here.”

Matsukawa falls into step beside him. “Well…”

“I hate it. How does he do it?”

“ _Oh no._ Wait, could it be—”

Oikawa sighs, and the Lord knows he’s at that point where there’s no denying anymore.

“He’s messing with my head and my stomach.”

“Huh,” Matsukawa perks up interestingly and lilts in a manner Oikawa dislikes. “You like him again?”

“I’m not saying anything,” he says anyway, even if he knows there’s no point in his defense. “You think he has a girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

“He clearly would have told us if there’s anyone. Why do you ask?”

“Why do I feel as if he’s flirting with me? I hate it.”

“Exactly in what way, Oikawa?”

“I don’t _know_. He was all _we, we_ back in the bus, and I was like, _oh_ , so you’re talking about _we_ a lot, you speak French now?”

Matsukawa doubles over, almost smashing his temple into a lamppost, and has to gather himself first. “Don’t you think it’s all in your head? Isn’t he like that to you all the time though?”

Oikawa huffs, arms now crossed. “Well, I hate it when he’s like that.”

“So you pass it as a stomachache…” Matsukawa states. “...when they had the best steak out there. It was Messi’s favorite restaurant.”

“No one cares about Messi’s personal preferences right now.”

He laughs again, head thrown carefree, until he really bashes his shoulder against the next lamppost and almost trips face-ground. “Fu—”

Oikawa takes it on for his revenge-laugh.

“So?” Matsukawa fixes himself, and Oikawa can feel those scheming eyes studying him. For the first time around this friend, he becomes highly self-conscious. “How do you feel that you like him again? That’s kinda, I dunno, _fucked_.”

“You know it. Ever since right after I got to be with him, I _loathe_ feelings,” he emphasizes, with arm actions to boot, to show how he _really loathes_ them. “Someone would try to flirt with me and I’d be hissing right back at them.”

“You have such a huge chip on your shoulder.”

“It’s not that.” He frowns, shaking his head. “I’m trying to take things with a grain of salt.”

“Right. But it’s Iwaizumi, so it must be fine.”

“No, but why am I suddenly nervous? Going on a trip with him,” he groans, receiving weird glances from passersby, which he is aware of. “Can’t you guys just stay back for a few days?”

“I wish we could. We’re leaving tomorrow.” Matsukawa gives him an apologetic look…that’s strangely genuine. “I dunno. I think I get why you’d be nervous, but I also don’t? Like it’s just a trip. It’s a catch-22 situation, Oikawa, you’re even making me confused. Not that you haven’t done it together while you liked him back then.”

“But we’re exes.”

“And?”

“What do you mean _and_?”

“He’s always been constant with you. And you’re the _antsy_ one. He’d literally just wash the dishes for you and you’d be frothing at the mouth. Christ,” says Matsukawa. It’s such a weird conception which Oikawa can actually visualize, and the truth of it makes him seethe. “Just think of it as like, the utmost final closure of your bond? Or it may be a catalyst for something new.”

“Don’t _catalyst_ me, I don’t know that word.”

“Oikawa, you’ve become effortlessly funny since coming to Argentina.”

“Fuck you.”

“Wow, that mouth of yours, please,” Matsukawa exclaims, hooded eyes widening for a brief moment, although Oikawa does acknowledge the counterattack was kind of immature. “Iwaizumi wouldn’t like that.”

“Mattsun.” Oikawa makes a disappointed face. “You really don’t know a thing.”

Hotel 900 stands before them soon enough; Oikawa hadn’t even known they have passed several blocks by now.

“Hey, Oikawa.”

“What?”

“D’you think you guys will get back together?”

There’s a pause that’s hard not to take—then Oikawa chuckles, head shaking at this unbelievable interrogation of a curious man, and shrugs too casually. He decides he won’t think much about it.

“Well... if my heart got broken by the same person, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Does it hurt to love him?”

“Not at all.”

“Alright,” Matsukawa smiles lopsided, seeming to understand, and pats him on the shoulder. “I’m heading back. Will you be alright? He looked really worried back there.”

Oikawa shoves his hands into his pants, gaze hovering on the pavers under his sandals, and then counters his fretful look with a brief smile.

“Yeah. Please tell him I’m okay.”

_—_

**_48%_** — _Hotel 900, Buenos Aires. Noviembre-Diciembre de 202x. (uno)_

_Zero. Zero. Zero. One._ Wind, and _click_.

“He’s going to get robbed with this weird combination,” Oikawa murmurs with a snort, and with his shoulder, pushes the door open.

Iwaizumi had gotten the corner room, and Oikawa had been raving about how it’s unfair, and that he should reclaim it as his because he’s the star athlete. Iwaizumi told him to shut his mouth but either way gave consent to look around anytime—

Hence, there Oikawa is at his balcony, lounging like it’s no one’s business and observing the lights pirouetting under and overhead.

Sometimes in still moments, he finds it extremely dumbfounding how Iwaizumi can make the places he walks and passes by his own—as if he’s lived enough to set a mark on any place with a piece of himself. His backpack sprawls by the bed, there’s his family photo on the bedside table, and a lone sock sits on the crumpled bed sheet. Even past the balcony doors, Oikawa can take a whiff of his milk-scented detergent—it reminds him back home in Miyagi.

He wonders if he was also one of those places.

Just a shy past midnight, he walks back to his own room, and this person’s name flashes on his phone screen.

“Iwa-chan?” he glances at the door behind him. There’s no one else there. “Did you get home?”

With how the silence stretches into the void, he wonders if on the other side of the line, no one else is there, too.

_“...so, how are you doing, really?”_

“I—” Oikawa pauses and stares at his phone for a moment, just to check that this isn’t an extension to a nocturnal daydream, but he’s faced by the running time under Iwaizumi’s name.

Below him, Buenos Aires is as enthusiastic as its morning rush, but all that comes within his hearing’s reach is his own heart thrumming.

_“…you there?”_

He puts his phone back to his ear. “Yeah.”

He shrugs for no one to look and then pauses—eyes at the ceiling and verklempt that he’s unable to speak words for a long stretch of moment. He’s always known how anything one does, thinks, and says past midnight brings nothing good of a fortune—just undetermined luck and outcomes careening out of control.

“Yeah.”

 _“What_ _yeah?”_

“Yeah,” he says it again. Midnight takes away his vigor and rationale, and leaves him with what his own body can supply—so, he lets his own heart speak for him. “I might dream of you, and I might miss you... but that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

_“…why not?”_

He can only grin, the sort of nuance that speaks, _but you’re Iwa-chan, how can you not know it already?_

Then again, in those years was the sixty-thousand miles and another sort of distance that came in between.

 _“Hm?”_ Iwaizumi prods but he only shakes his head.

“Nothing. Zero.”

Where Iwaizumi is silent, Oikawa fills the stillness with his laugh. It’s sort of a part of their dynamic, and a thought comes to him that maybe some habits can’t be abandoned naturally.

“Iwa-chan? Hey—did you forget you get the worst hangovers among all of us? Actually, I’m in the mood for instant ramen tomorrow.” _It’s always morning hangovers and instant ramen_ —the usual, and it really has been long. The next words wound a little too tight around his tongue. “Maybe you should come home and sleep, Iwa-chan.”

_—_

**_53%_** — _Hotel 900, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 202x. (dos)_

Oikawa drops his knees to the floor, half-disoriented and half-perplexed, and lands just next to Iwaizumi sitting on the hard wood, cradling his head with an eco-bag in his free hand.

“Iwa-chan, what are you doing on the floor? How long have you been out here?”

“I figured you might still be asleep so I didn’t knock.”

Apparently, hangover-induced Iwaizumi had camped outside his room, bringing takeout breakfast and instant ramen (as pertained to last night’s conversation) and almost cracked the back of his head upon Oikawa pulling the door open.

Having a glance at what contains in the bag, he shakes his head, an amused laugh comes out, and he helps him up by the hand.

“Didn’t you have my PIN? You’re going to get premature osteoporosis. I’m starting to think you’re a quack doctor.”

“So, you still care about me,” Iwaizumi states, sound devoid of any emotion, and Oikawa makes a double take.

“What?”

The brief silence makes him shiver, but then it could be the 6 AM morning chill when the other clears his throat and sniffs.

“It’s not zero percent after all?”

“What are you talking about?” His utters come barely a whisper. Suddenly, swallowing feels like consuming a thousand tacks passing through his esophagus. “Get inside, stupid.”

Iwaizumi follows him suit as he quickly makes his bed, doesn’t deny that doing so is his way of distraction, until he realizes an unspoken agreement that he doesn’t have to tidy up—because habits are left as is, and morning hangovers and instant ramen has always meant camping on the floor.

“We broke up, but of course we still care for each other. At least I do,” he mutters, throwing a pillow back into place and proceeding into filling the electric kettle with water; Iwaizumi doesn’t speak after that. Oikawa thinks this might be the most excruciating event he’s experienced firsthand into the day and he certainly doesn’t like the uneasiness that comes along. “Here, the rug’s pretty warm.”

Iwaizumi quietly takes the offer, promptly lies full on on a dusty carpet, joints cracking at the loosing tension of his body, and closes his eyes. He doesn’t speak while he does either, but Oikawa quietly smiles at the sight, feeling a simultaneous sense of fondness and a churn in his chest that he dislikes. There’s sunlight and a brief blow similar to a spring breeze, and it reminds him back home in Miyagi—somewhere that had been a safe haven for comfort zones, even until only-daydreams.

Iwaizumi catches his gaze before he can look away (but he doesn’t plan on looking away), and he keeps on gazing at him as is.

“What?” Iwaizumi calls, a light smirk tugging at his lips. Oikawa only shakes his head.

“You really are stupid.”

The kettle whistles, boiling water rushes into plastic cups, and hot smoke billows the space between them. _Kitsune udon for Tooru, kare for Hajime._ Several feet under, the morning rush and early Christmas melodies intertwine with the indoor tranquility, and they both say their prayers.

“You’re always the best at this,” Iwaizumi snorts. “Can’t believe they have my favorite brand and flavor here.”

“Oh, I know. Just putting in boiling water and seasoning is masterchef-tier. Instant ramen is the best hangover remedy,” Oikawa declares, gesturing a chef’s kiss.

Iwaizumi scoffs. “Stupid.”

To say that he is grinning is an understatement, and there’s a flutter in Oikawa’s stomach that makes him lightheaded.

“Where’s Mattsun and Makki?”

“Out. Exploring Buenos Aires as much as they can.”

“As they should.”

When he hunches over to slurp his noodles, he gets a handful of bangs crowding at his eyes. The contemplation of maybe getting a haircut somewhere near follows after, although before he could decide for himself or do something about it, maybe grab a hair tie or slip his headband on, Iwaizumi reaches over, fingers combing through his full locks and pushing it back for him.

He freezes when his mind gets thrown many years back, because even if the same butterflies are enough to make him pass out, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise factor when Iwaizumi had always done it before.

As he looks up, there’s bold wistfulness on Iwaizumi’s face, and while he feels the same (and maybe even more than what he can take by heart), he stays firm and quiet.

“How many percent then?”

Oikawa sighs, knowing he can’t segue out, and speaks around his noodles. “What keeps on making you ask this...”

Bits of loose hair start to fall into his forehead and Iwaizumi has to completely abandon his meal to revive his failed up-do. “I’m already embarrassed enough to bring this up.”

 _No one told you, Iwa-chan._ “You’ll get your answer someday. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“...how I broke your heart?”

Oikawa laughs, eyes lighting up in recognition, and points at him with his chopsticks. “You’re quoting Rod Stewart on me now?”

“I love Rod Stewart,” he offhandedly comments. _Huh_ , that’s a new thing Oikawa knows.

“But no… no one broke anyone’s heart. We decided it like that,” he says, giving him a meaningful smile. He sits up properly, making his bangs bounce in a sad limp, and Iwaizumi’s fingers hang in still air. “If I was hurt, then it was my fault. I broke my own heart my own.”

The other espies him without a word, and Oikawa knows he knows well he can’t counter with anything worth saying, so he nods.

“Do you also do this in Cali?”

“…not that often.” Iwaizumi pokes his soggy noodles with his chopsticks. “A fruit shake would suffice me, though it could be in par with having instant ramen of course.”

Oikawa gives a small smile. “Ah. Is that so?”

“What do you take with a hangover then?”

“Instant ramen.”

Iwaizumi hums. “You never changed?”

There’s a ring from Iwaizumi’s phone that meddles in.

Oikawa wonders who it could be as he sees surprise and pleasantness cross his face, but they’re way past long distances and overdue time to pry with each other’s personal businesses. Iwaizumi answers it in a flawless American accent, throwing him a look before silently excusing himself to the balcony, and in all honestly, Oikawa can only understand half of what he’s saying and the view is strange to him.

For the first time in his life, he sees Iwaizumi as someone he can barely recognize.

_And what about you? Did you change?_

The phone conversation goes on until he has finished his food to the last bit. He tidies up his trash, pulls the lid of Iwaizumi’s curry ramen back down while he’s at it—it has gone lukewarm now.

Oikawa hears him say something of going back after the holidays and how he’s missed his friend’s dog named Rocky. There are all other things he can barely get a grip of that he can’t say anything about, because for a clearly even reason, he too leads a different life in a different country—he’s fluent in a language that Iwaizumi can’t speak a lick of, and he has a horsetail back in _El Piso_ that he tends to in his free time.

Iwaizumi laughs, free in the city morning, speaking a string of words Oikawa is alien to and talking to someone he’s not mutually friends with. It hasn’t really ever struck to him how things were _this_ changed now.

Some conversation from two years ago resurfaces without consent, vague in the form of breakups and half-goodbyes, and he then again knows the purpose of one last _anythings_ undone.

Into the city morning, Oikawa sends his own interrogation as a curious man.

_Are you finally where you need to be, Iwa-chan?_

_—_

_(“The days pass by so quickly.” It’s the hundredth day and I still don’t miss you._

_“But are you okay?” Are you happy?_

_“Yeah. Nowadays, I’ve become more and more like it.” I’m getting closer.)_

_—_

**_66%_** _— Puente Nicolas Avellaneda, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 2020x._

“Iwa-chan.”

“Yup.”

“If you had the extra time and money, where’d you wanna go in Argentina?”

On a run to catch the sunset in Avellaneda Bridge, Oikawa mulls over extended holidays as he hands Iwaizumi his drink, them all basking into the air of zero worries and untended obligations. The sky blares a bright orange, signaling an almost ending day, and he wonders how much he can make out of the left over time.

“Me? Iguazu.” A prompt answer after a long swig, like he doesn’t even need to think about it. “I wanna visit the falls and maybe go on a boat ride. I watched a documentary and it looked fun.”

“Such an Iwa-chan answer.”

He bobs his shoulders, giving Oikawa the bottle back to him, and wipes at his trickling sweat with his forearm.

“Hey, you got a spare towel?”

“That’s the case. I forgot to bring anything.”

—and then Oikawa feels a sharp gush of the wind when the front of his shirt lifts up, and he gapes at Iwaizumi in horror when he uses the fabric to wipe at his sweat.

“Iwa-chan, _gross_.”

“Sorry, mine’s dri-fit. Where were we again?”

“Up north?” Oikawa recalls, taking a short sip while trying to be offhanded with how he can just _discern_ Iwaizumi by it. “I mean you to Iguazu. In my case, I’ve really wanted to go to Ushuaia.”

“Sounds like Ushiwaka.”

“I’m still salty about that selfie you took with him,” he grumbles and Iwaizumi laughs.

They glance at both ends of the road and cross when it’s void of moving vehicles. When a speeding bus almost catches Oikawa by the heel, Iwaizumi drags him by his hand. “Isn’t that at the far end of Argentina?”

“Yeah! It’s called the _End of the World_ for a reason. Like far down south.”

“I heard it’s hella cold out there.”

“But it’s nice.” Upon reaching the other side, he leans against the steel railings and mirrors Iwaizumi. The wind captures his chestnut waves and swirls it into a tangled mess, and he catches himself mirroring Iwaizumi’s laugh too. “Did you remember that one scene in Happy Together? Where Lai said heartbroken people go there, to the end of the world, to throw away their sorrows or something.”

“Not that I recall...”

“Iwa-chan, that’s my favorite movie...”

“Is that why you’ve always want to go there?” Iwaizumi asks him; Oikawa knows what the follow up is enough for him to look away. “Is it because I broke your heart?”

“I already said no one broke anyone’s heart.” He adds a lilt in his voice as his own means of guarantee. He refuses to misconstrue the reason, because even if Iwaizumi did break his heart, he doesn’t want to throw anything away. “So, if you’re heading north and I southward, we’re going opposite directions then.”

“Yeah, well. If we had the time in the world...”

“Hey, but even after we go to opposite ends, when you’ve visited Iguazu falls and rode your boat…” _So, this is why you’re never going to reach zero_ , Oikawa firmly reminds himself beforehand, but asks him this anyway. “…would you come after me to Ushuaia?”

_(“Because, you know, it’s a given... that no matter where you’ll be, that’s where my heart goes.”)_

Iwaizumi snorts, now facing front. “Okay.”

Oikawa laughs, nothing short of pleased, because he _is_ , and he knows where he’s the happiest is where he falls the hardest— _like this blaring sunset at the tail end of the day._

“Then, if you were to die tomorrow, what would you do today?”

“What’s up with your questions?”

Oikawa grins, elbowing him.

Iwaizumi actually considers. “Depends. Why?”

“That’s supposed to be an easy question. You should do whatever the heck you want to do.”

“Then I guess that’s debatable. I’m probably going to do that.”

“ _That?_ ”

“That whatever I want to do.”

“Debatable.” He thrums his fingers against the steel, then lights up upon coming up with something. “Hey, should we go skydiving before we leave?”

Iwaizumi looks at him like he’s grown two heads. “ _Stupid_. You’re afraid of heights.”

“I’m taking it as if I’m going to die soon.”

“What’s with you and _dying_ , Oikawa? Do you have a terminal illness?” He jokingly jabs, but his quivering irises say otherwise. Oikawa suppresses a laugh.

“Don’t hoodoo me. _I’m not_.”

“Don’t die or your mom will kill me.”

“Actually, there’s more chances of us dying in a car crash than skydiving. Zero point zero-one-six-seven percent over zero point triple zero-seven.”

“Way to go convincing yourself… but let me tell you, I do often think about possibilities of going skydiving every time I’m in Argentina.”

“Right?” Oikawa chimes, much more enthusiastic than he’s concerned about actually dying. “So, should we finally do it?” And with the extent of his excitement, he grabs at Iwaizumi’s sides, pleading but unintentional, and only realizes they’ve done something out of habit again when Iwaizumi freely circles his arm around his shoulder.

“If you want to. It’s scary as shit but I’m hyped up.”

He feels dizzy seeing him this close, and it only means he’s comfortable enough for his butterflies to allow him to be lightheaded. “Iwa-chan, you’re really not afraid of anything, huh?”

“You make it sound like I’m a robot. I’m afraid of a lot of things.”

“Like?”

“Cockroaches.”

“ _Oh_ , right,” he guffaws, and Iwaizumi winces.

“You spat on me.”

“You screamed the loudest in the clubroom.”

He grins out of embarrassment, and Oikawa is past trying to hold himself back to catch himself also smiling like this. When Iwaizumi meets his eyes, he forgets about the blaring sunset and thinks about another kind of sunset before him— _perhaps grayer, greener._

“That’s probably the only insect you hate.”

“Because they smell.”

“Really? How did you know?”

“I splat one with my hand and it smelled gross.”

He retches. “ _Disgusting_.”

Iwaizumi snickers, and his fingers play with the baby hair on his nape; Oikawa, for once, doesn’t mind his bearing of being too close for comfort.

“There’s one more thing, actually.”

“What?”

“…maybe Oikawa Tooru?”

“ _What?_ ” He cackles—he sounds ecstatic for anyone to hear, because again, he _is_ , and in this very moment, pretending is the last thing he wants to do. “I’m a cockroach? The hell makes you say that?”

Iwaizumi shakes his head, and he looks at him like he’s indulgently taking him in. “Yeah, a lot. I’m afraid of many things.”

By this time, Oikawa has stopped laughing, and all that’s left is a small, curious smile. “No, but _why_ are you afraid of me?”

He only gives Oikawa a crooked smile, and it’s liminal where it gives him another one of that odd churn he dislikes. Iwaizumi gently knocks his knuckles to his chin which makes him grimace— _Iwa-chan and his bouts of ambiguity—_ and it aggravates him to the point of a headache.

“Just many things.”

_—_

**_75%_** _— El Balcón de Cuarto #1205, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 202x._

“I’m not saying you’re drunk,” Oikawa garbles, clinks the bordeaux with his companion’s, and tips it to his mouth. “Though you clearly are.”

Somewhere under the Argentine sky, Oikawa and Iwaizumi camp this time on the cold _azulejos_ in the balcony of some corner room, in admiration of the dynamic shift of the city night with a laid back drinking session that consists of leftover Bressia Conjuro.

“No way in hell I am. _You’re_ drunk off your ass.”

“I have higher alcohol tolerance,” he conceitedly states. “You’d be dead before me.”

“It’s only five percent alcohol content. That’s basically drinking grape juice.”

“The heck you saying five percent?” He squawks, taking offense. “You don’t drink wine with alcohol content that low in _Argentina_ ,” he exclaims with an accent. “It’s not just grape juice, it’s _fermented_ grape juice.”

Iwaizumi raises his free hand after he does a take on his drink. “You know what, I’m not even gonna fight you. But debatable.”

Oikawa laughs at this. _Us and our nonsensical debatables_.

“In a way that..?”

“I’m asking you. What even is the difference between a chardonnay and a sauvignon blanc?” Iwaizumi questions him, with the hand gestures and stuff, an absurd expression of vexation and a skeptic sigh brought by tipsiness. “A whisky and a brandy? _A brandy and a cognac?_ Wine is no different from grape juice.” He swirls the drink in his glass. “It’s from grape.”

“Iwa-chan—” Oikawa wheezes, and he really can’t deny the fact that he longs conversing with this airhead-sounding Iwaizumi, and he _aches_ to say it to his face. “ _God_ , no, you just—”

_I really missed this and I missed you—_

“ _What?_ ”

“You sound _stupid_.”

“ _You’re saying?_ ” Iwaizumi bristles and almost wakes a whole neighboring building. “You’re from Argentina, that’s why I am asking you, _stupid_.”

“I’m an _athlete_ not a distiller.”

“Well, how could I forget?” He rolls his eyes. “Nevermind.”

“Oh, but from what I know, they differ from origin and distillation. I thought you knew a thing or two about it? You’re fond of drinking.”

When Oikawa shifts to face him, Iwaizumi gives him a side-eye and pulls him closer by the back of his knee.

“It’s fucking liquor; I just drink. I don’t drink to study about them and _yell_ about how a merlot is great for... a fucking _duck_.”

“Oh my god, Iwa-chan,” he giggles and in between makes an ugly snort. “You know, I have a sudden image of Jack Daniel in my head and it’s creeping me out.”

Iwaizumi guffaws, almost dropping half his drink when he doubles over. “Hey, have you heard about the telltale of his death? One where he got blood poisoning.”

“Because he kicked his safe out of frustration and stubbed his toe? I was the one who told you that story,” Oikawa snorts. “Not true though.”

Iwaizumi frowns. “Why would you spread information that’s not true?”

“It’s on Wikipedia!”

“Well, you believe in and rant about aliens so why should I be surprised…”

He flinches when Oikawa smacks his leg, though he takes the chance to swipe at his hand and bite his pointer.

“ _Iwa-chan—!_ ”

“Shut up with your Iwa-chan.”

Oikawa sputters, feeling like he’s been put on the spot, and awkwardly sips his drink. “This tastes like wine though.”

“No, but Oikawa… it really is grape juice,” confesses Iwaizumi. “I filled half the bottle with grape juice that’s why it tastes like both, because I know you’d complain about your head again.”

“Iwa-chan, _why_? It’s a Bressia—”

“Grape juice.”

“You murdered a high quality drink—”

“It’s _grape_.”

“ _I said it’s not—_ ”

“Shut up or I’ll kiss you.”

 _That_ makes Oikawa shut up.

In fact, what makes him is Iwaizumi saying it like it isn’t a mistake. The bordeaux hangs loose in his fingers, burgundy liquid dripping on the _azulejos_ along with his heartbeat in its comfort zone, and at the tip of his chuckle, he gives Iwaizumi a retired smile.

“Will you really, babe?”

Iwaizumi swallows before asking, “Will you let me?”

With their gazes on each other, they don’t shy away from uneasiness and laugh off a joke not meant to be told. Oikawa notices the bobbing of Iwaizumi’s throat and doesn’t retreat nor scold himself for not retreating when Iwaizumi shifts closer to his confines. He doesn’t speak, lets his movements do so—the subtlety of inching fingers and a breath he’s not afraid to take, the poise he emits in laying hold of what’s his.

Oikawa knows he’s far off from zero percent, from the reality he tries to mold, when his whole heart waits for him.

He feels the whiff of Iwaizumi’s chuckle on his lips when the entire town darkens and surprised screams echo from the _calle_ and _esquina_. The bordeaux in his hand now rolls of close to the edge of the balcony.

“I hate it here,” Oikawa snickers, biting down on his lip and resisting himself from screaming into the skies.

“Do power-outs often happen here or something…”

“ _God_ ,” he groans and Iwaizumi snorts with a tinge of shame. When Oikawa makes a move to stand up, he catches his wrist.

“Stay here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he chuckles to his surprise, but Iwaizumi doesn’t let him go and retrieves the glass himself. In response, he makes himself comfortable beside him, enough to let himself think it’s still the way before.

“Oikawa…”

“Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi sighs. “Seems nostalgic, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Home,” he says, and it sounds wistful. “I miss home.”

“Iwa-chan...”

“But we can do this again. One for the road.”

“Do what?”

“Like this. Don’t move.”

 _One for the road._ “You’re talking as if you’re leaving.”

Under the Argentine sky, there’s a moment of quietness void of any thinking. Iwaizumi shoots closer until it reaches past the doings of the past—no sweating, no losing of breath, and just a shy away from overwhelmingly intimate. Unmoving and without a word. They both stay there, taking each other in, and in Oikawa’s head he says _zero regrets_ even if he can’t achieve that zero percent.

_(“Does it hurt to love him?”_

_“Not at all.”)_

He decides he’ll be lax tonight, because it’s a power-out, because the heavens forbid he won’t in the next midnights. He indulges in gazing at Iwaizumi as if tonight was those nights many years back—heart on his sleeves—only because he couldn’t see him in the dark. And like before, he keeps on doing it until he fills his longing and slumber hazes his vision.

“I’ve always been curious about something,” he whispers, afraid of the imminent crack in his voice if he speaks any louder. “It may sound selfish, so you don’t have to answer it.”

“I’m listening.”

“Say,” he continues, glides his thumb over something warm and alive, eyes focused towards the brief gleam of someone’s eyes under the moonlight. He’s thanks the dark, for that way, he doesn’t have to see anything else. “Was it really the best for us, Iwa-chan?”

He thanks the dark, because that way this _someone_ wouldn’t have to see him break his own wall, even if they both agreed it’s okay.

“I know it was. But the moment I said it, I also wished you could have said anything to stop me, knowing I’m oftentimes destructively impulsive.” _Not by a nod of a head and by a goodbye kiss._ “Because it wasn’t goodbye right? We’re still here, and even if we broke up, we still care for each other.”

“We wouldn’t be here if it was goodbye.”

He lets his fingers wind with Iwaizumi’s—there’s no refusing—and he lets the dark and the bouts of starlight take responsibility.

And there goes that churn in his chest that he’s slowly grown accustomed to.

“Okay.” He understands now—he finally understands what that churn in his chest means, and he knows it will always be there. “...I’m about to sleep now.”

He can feel Iwaizumi’s fingers grip his tighter. “You can’t.”

“I love your room,” he says, almost pleading, and it’s like playing with the nuances. “Let me for tonight.”

“Okay.”

If not for his closed eyes, maybe he would have really affirmed it. But then again, with his heart subconsciously on guard and his weary mind, he doesn’t want to think much of how he’s heard Iwaizumi whisper, “I’m not leaving.”

And into the daybreak, Oikawa wakes up to a light headache, now in the bed he doesn’t own, aspirin and a glass of water on the bedside table. The only thing missing perhaps, is someone he’s expecting to wake up to.

“He said he’s not leaving,” he mumbles, burying his head into the pillow that loosely smells like Miyagi spring.

_—_

**_84%_** _— Paracaidismo Lobos, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 202x. (uno)_

The ride up to the skies gives Iwaizumi an unexpected nosebleed.

They were talking about casual things with the crew to ease up the blood—with English, Spanish and the sporadic Japanese thrown everywhere, it turns into a friendly banter between languages, until Oikawa pauses halfway his speech, eyes widening as he gapes at Iwaizumi.

“Iwa-chan—”

“Nosebleed, nosebleed,” Oikawa’s jumper declares, seemingly calm on the other hand, while Oikawa himself internally panics. “Tissue.”

Iwaizumi’s guy sits them erect and hurriedly passes him a tissue box; Iwaizumi may have pulled out five sheets before he shoves them all into his nose.

“Tilt your head down a little. If you feel lightheaded after a few seconds, tell us.”

“Iwa-chan…” It’s obvious how his voice quakes, and with Iwaizumi’s free hand, he placates him by patting his leg. Had it gone for almost a minute, the pilot almost considered going back down.

“I’m good,” he announces once the bleeding has stopped and he detects no signs of dizziness.

“Water?”

“Please.”

“How are you feeling?” Oikawa’s hands come up to his neck and cheek as he searches his face, and for someone who has a look as if he just witnessed a grisly murder, his hands are gentle. “Are you okay now?”

“Are _you_ okay? Oikawa, you’re paling.”

“This is what I told you about going skydiving.”

“You initiated it. It’s too late to back out.”

“But—”

“Oikawa, shut up.” _Or I’ll kiss you_ , a passing recollection from last night buzzes through.

“What if we die in the free fall?”

“No one will die, dumbass. Don’t hoodoo me.”

“Is everyone doing good?” The pilot asks them upon observing the slightly grim exchange, careening forward towards the bullseye of the drop zone. “Just to be sure so you guys won’t get hurt. Safety first.”

“Oikawa…”

“I’m not nervous. I’m scared about him.”

“I’m fine,” he tells the crew in reassurance. “Sorry, please don’t mind him. We’re good.”

“Baby,” he calls out to him quite helplessly; Iwaizumi holds back a nonplussed grin, silly tissue paper ruffling under his nose and then getting blown away by the strong wind. In the spur of the moment, he leans over to press a fleeting kiss to his temple, and Oikawa thinks he might just as well die.

“You’re so twenty-seven.”

“That’s okay.” The pilot says, grinning. “You’re the most vulnerable when scared.”

Oikawa thinks maybe he’s right, because in his head runs a different thousand thoughts but nothing containing of rationale—no wonder he’s lightheaded as floating in midair, because he left a large part of his brain to the ground and carried his heart up in the clouds. At that moment, the urge of needing to do something takes place—not by a hold of a hand nor by a goodbye kiss—and he well, just asks him this again.

“No, but what if we _die_ in the free fall?”

“Then I’m doing whatever the hell I want to do,” Iwaizumi responds, stagnant in the turbulence of many thoughts and around him, and Oikawa stares, confused, distressed, and all sorts of curious.

“Thirty seconds,” Iwaizumi’s jumper pats him in alert, and begins position.

And with one last look at Oikawa, with the fifty-fifty chance he might see him alive later or never again, Iwaizumi pulls him by the neck and kisses him before he plunges.

_Is that what you wanted to do?_

_—_

**_|x|_** _— Hotel 900, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 202x. (tres)_

“Did you pack up?”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi responds from the bathroom, gathering the last bits of his things and contemplating whether he should leave with what’s left in his amenity basket. “Ah, I can’t believe I’m leaving Argentina again… this is what I hate about coming here.”

“Iguazu is welcoming you next.”

“As I was planning actually. But the skydiving experience was really something.”

“Best idea I had.” Oikawa sighs, in remembrance of the free fall— _pilot chute, spiral_ , then _parachute._ The serenity that came after. The disposed words meant for no one to hear, and smiles to himself. “Zero regrets.”

_Even if he couldn’t achieve that zero percent._

“Would you do it again though?”

“No thanks.”

Iwaizumi snorts, forcefully chucking his toiletry bag into his backpack (that Oikawa finds extremely concerning), and reappears into the bedroom. He spots him laying on that damned dusty carpet with his outdated wired earpods on, legs thrown over the bed that he forms a rather perfect right-angled Z.

“What are you listening to?”

“Oh, just—a playlist.”

“I’m joining you,” he announces, mimics Oikawa’s position (with the additional groaning over cracking joints), and snatches the other pair of his earpod. Oikawa doesn’t stop him and keeps his eyes to the ceiling.

“I love Spanish architecture.”

“Oh yeah?”

“There’s something about it that I find really nostalgic.”

“How so?”

“It just feels like it. I don’t know…” he drones, fingers dancing into the slow beat of the closing tune to Don McLean’s _Empty Chairs_. “I wanna travel to Cuba someday.”

“They have cool transportation. They use old cars from the 1950’s.”

“I wonder how they keep it running…”

“Probably by changing engines and other parts.”

Oikawa hums in thought. “Is that so?”

 _Landslide_ by Fleetwood Mac transitions into and Oikawa gets thrown to a memory on a night in Bar Sur, at the well-known pattern of guitar strums he once heard in the middle of a self-diagnosed indigestion, and chuckles to himself. Iwaizumi stares.

“You know a fun fact about this song? This came on shuffle on my morning run,” he states, fingers unconsciously twirling with the wire, Patagonian stone peacefully sitting on his chest. “Normally, a song should be around 125 BPM for a jog, and this one’s around 72, but that run on that certain morning was the fastest I ever did.”

“And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because it was the first song I heard after we broke up,” he says, and once again feels that same rush of tranquility when he was up in the sky. “I didn’t want to think about what I did wrong—”

“ _No_ , you did nothing wrong—”

“No, listen to me.” He placates Iwaizumi by a hold of a hand, like he did up there, and this time faces him with no reluctance. _For zero regrets and infinite prospects._ “I didn’t want to think about what _went_ wrong, so I ran as hard as I could, enough for my mind to blank out, but all I could ever hear was this song. It dragged on for the entire day, and the day after, _and days after that_ , until it dawned to me that _oh, so Iwa-chan is not here anymore_.” On his face is a smile that doesn’t take a muscle to pull, and it comes out painless. “And it says there, _I’ve been afraid of changing because I’ve built my life around you,_ and it took me a long time to disengage myself from what I’ve been afraid of, because I didn’t want to change from what I was used to, but life goes on, and people were built with their feet to move forward...“ _All on intuition and in accordance_ “...so we should be that way, right?”

“We should. Of course.” Iwaizumi concurs—with a sigh he can’t grasp and barely a chuckle he can’t make. On his face are his eyes with a conflicting nuance to what Oikawa now finds easy to hold. “I told you. I told you we should put these down to zero and you said that it was the best.”

“So I could start trying,” Oikawa whispers. “I tried until it was all worth it... because look at us now.”

“Of course.” Iwaizumi nods, and squeezes his hand. “I don’t think I would’ve told you we could’ve done it all the other way.” Oikawa eyes soften, brought something of understanding and barely a heartbreak. “I didn’t want to forget you, and I don’t think I ever will, but it was honestly such a _trip_ trying to forget us… I had lost count how many miles I ran. That’s why I never got to ground zero.”

“But we know how it all made sense in the end, right, Iwa-chan?” A quiet laugh escapes his mouth and in the longest self-restraint, a lone tear falls from his eye. “Maybe it really was the best for us.”

“You really think so?”

“Zero regrets,” he says, more to himself, and nonchalantly wipes at his eyes. “I just think there’s an arrival for everything. And that time arrives when you realize what you felt and constantly thought about, the things that stole the hours you could have been sleeping and ate you up until they had you on the edge of the cliff, had dissolved into a small figment in the back of your mind. The cue comes and it doesn't faze you, a reminder appears and it only leaves a strange buzz to your head, and it’s almost as if they hadn’t existed in the first place. You’re asked how you’re feeling, and you don’t say _I’m okay,_ or, _it was nothing_ … you don’t answer, but there’s fulfillment in your silence that can’t be equated to words or a smile that forces reassurance.” _And any momentary pondering_. “Well then, maybe I have arrived there, you think, Iwa-chan?” He smiles, and though his face almost collapses, he seems contented. “Zero percent.”

“Ah.” Iwaizumi chuckles wetly, mist blurring his vision and a helpless grin, a nod in understanding and something that speaks: _I am proud of you and your progress…_

_But why are my insides disintegrating for your contentment?_

Oikawa laughs with him, open and exhilarating and quite in contrary, unchained with thoughts of _obliterating_ , and Iwaizumi bites on his cheek with hope caught in his throat.

“Hajime,” he continues quietly, to test the waters and through, and learns to love the aches in his forlorn longing. “I may still love you, but that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Where Iwaizumi is silent, Oikawa fills the stillness with his yearning and the downpour of his heart that he can’t quite get a hold of.

“I just love you and nothing else. And it’s absolute. I could take it all in and nothing comes out, it remains planted inside me. And you could go off happier with someone else or by yourself and I’d be right there with no anger or grudge or _begging_. Zero percent with only me and these... _feelings_.” A pause. _Then a breath. Then a consideration_. “Maybe that wouldn’t change in a long time how...I’ll just love you like this.” And with a small shake of his head, he utters, “I hope it won’t.”

_New worlds for the weary._

_New lands for the living._

And where Iwaizumi silent, Oikawa lets the stillness remain as it is, and lingers in it.

“I hope it will.” Iwaizumi whispers.

Oikawa’s eyes soften in question.

“Will you allow me, babe?”

“For what?” he asks, still, even if he never did not allow him anything.

“For another chance,” Iwaizumi says, and he pokes his cheek with his tongue, forearm sweeping along his eyes and voice on the precipice of cracking. There comes a long pause more painful than anything, and Oikawa holds on to every breath in the silent night. He thinks of potentials of concurring power-outs and prays to the heavens there’s nothing this time. “I want it to mean something, but I don’t want to stop you from holding any grudge or anger or begging. I might be fine by myself but I don’t want to go off happier with someone else. With the miles I ran, block by block, all the while, I was meeting new people, but I didn’t know anyone else to go off with, I only knew you. You were something that reminded me of home that I didn’t want to lose. I don’t want it to be zero percent, I just want it to absolute between us.”

 _Iwaizumi Hajime._ Iwaizumi Hajime with his coinciding bouts of vagueness and abundance of eloquence.

“Iwaizumi Hajime—”

“I still do,” he tells him. His earpod slides out as he reels on his side to fully face him, and the next song is now forgotten in the dusts. “And I never stopped.”

“...why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t stop running.”

This time, when they kiss, no one plummets and no one says goodbye. No dark clouds nor clear skies above their heads, just timber beams and stenciled motif that brings nostalgia to nowhere certain… a feeling of going back in time, where it’s brief like waves against the shore.

_But it’s the best feeling._

“I don’t want to stop running; I’d rather tire my legs,” Iwaizumi’s words float through his lips; Oikawa draws him closer and catches the remaining ones.

 _Because I want to run with you_.

_—_

**_100%_** _— Paracaidismo Lobos, Buenos Aires. Diciembre de 202x. (dos)_

“Thirty seconds,” the jumper announces as he teeters both him and Oikawa to the edge of the plane. As he’s told himself, he’s not going to look down unless he’s finally hanging by a parachute. “Like they said, forty-five second free fall, you won’t hear anything! You can scream to your heart’s content!”

“Is that so!”

“Fifteen seconds into diving. You good to go?”

“Yes! Please get me back to him safely.”

“Heading in three.”

_Two._

_One—_

In the free fall, Oikawa’s mind accelerates more than gravity can allow; the kiss still lingers as if it’s been there all along for two years, and his head gets sorted out as he passes through the clouds. He’s not sure if he’s screaming, only the strong hissing of his fall is within his hearing range, but he knows what he’s certain of—because the more he reaches the ground, the more his head strays from the clouds and away from the reality he’s been trying to mold.

 _You won’t hear anything_.

_Scream to your heart’s content!_

Before the forty-five second free fall ends, before the jumper pulls out the pilot chute and does a spiral—

Oikawa shouts _I love you_ for no one to hear.

The parachute is withdrawn—he is met by an exhilarating view against the sea of clouds and the greens of the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and almost cries on the spot. In that moment, he can feel how those forty-five seconds alone made him light and at peace, and he only makes out how it all happened slow enough for him to realize that honesty and acceptance are what made him forgive his pain.

_I understand that you will always be a part of me, and I am willing to take you to that certainty of uncertainty._

“What’s your name again?”

“Ernesto,” his jumper replies. “Welcome to my office.”

Ernesto toggles the canopy to the left and Oikawa gets the view of Iwaizumi’s parachute against the horizon. He stares at the yellow spot with yearning, a different, peaceful kind, _no more ugly churn in his chest_ , and just the ache of wanting to be near again.

“Your lover?”

Oikawa lowly chuckles, face melting into a wistful smile when the yellow disappears into the clouds.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, quite more to himself. _It doesn’t matter_ , when it took him two years to try forgetting him and only forty-five seconds to know he doesn’t have a fight for it. “Just someone that’s mine.”

Iwaizumi meets him in the drop zone and catches him in a hug before he can even fully take his harness off. Oikawa meets him halfway, his gear dangling off his feet as he gets momentarily lifted.

“You made it.” Iwaizumi grins cupping his face, and Oikawa decides the clouds that were before him were a little less exhilarating. “Are you hurt?”

Oikawa shakes his head and laughs, maybe sobs in between, _it doesn’t matter_ , and buries his face to the crook of his neck. “I missed you,” he tells him with Iwaizumi being caught in surprise. When he can’t say it back, he doesn’t take another second-guessing for the sake of rationale, and kisses him with ardor.

His feet meet the ground again, their hands grasp on parts that draw them back home, and familiarity is rediscovered from a kiss that’s been long missed.

“I missed you. _I miss you_ ,” Oikawa whispers, in between breaths, arms holding onto his shoulders for dear life; Iwaizumi captures his lips, takes in all the words and words to be said, and tugs him closer. The chant doesn’t stop there, and he knows it won’t ever, not until he’s poured a seven-hundred days’ worth for Iwaizumi to hear.

“I really miss you,” his voice quivers, and he tucks his face again to his neck. “I don’t even know.”

“What are you missing me for?” Iwaizumi susurrates into his ear and in time tightens his arms as Oikawa’s knees begin to buckle. “You don’t have to.”

This time, Oikawa affirms it, _in full consciousness, heart not on guard, no weary mind_ , and lives in the reassurance of his words.

“I’m not leaving.”

_—_

**_|x|_** — _YVR, Canada._ _December 202x._

“Who’s coming to get us?”

“Mattsun and Makki.”

Oikawa groans, throwing his head heavenwards to curse. “ _God_ , I’m sick of them.”

“I heard Kunimi’s coming along.”

“Except for one person!” he corrects quickly, chiming in enthusiasm. “...who happens to be my favorite _kouhai_.”

“Tobio won’t be happy to hear that,” Iwaizumi reminds him with a chuckle and they both get in line for the check-in counter. “Passport?”

Oikawa hurriedly digs for his passport holder in his fanny pack, freezes, and then gives Iwaizumi a ghastly look. “ _Fuck?_ ”

“Don’t shit with me.”

His face melts into a stupid grin before handing it to him. “That stripling didn’t visit me when he was in Cordoba and I’m still in grudges about it. Ushiwaka went ahead of him,” he grumbles. “Ah, I miss that guy sometimes. A beer with him would be nice. Don’t tell him though.”

“Which of them?”

“Tobio. I FaceTimed Ushiwaka five days ago, I don’t miss him.”

Iwaizumi snorts, contains himself quickly for the quick check-in, before lugging their things on the conveyor and huffing at the lack of proper workout for _days_. “What makes you feel entitled having people visit you, huh?”

“I said it to make you jealous.”

“We’re way past that stage, Oikawa. What are you, _five_?” He cringes, dragging him to the gatehouse by shoving a hand into his back pocket. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Last night.”

He grins stupidly and Iwaizumi wishes he hadn’t said anything. “You wanna do it again?”

Iwaizumi thwacks his throat with the back of his hand, making him yelp and earn appalled looks from people.

“Should we sit in the front?”

“Anywhere, really,” he says with a sigh, arm hooked around Iwaizumi’s neck as he checks his phone for the time. _Twenty minutes before boarding._ _“_ I just want to go home, ASAP. When was the last time you went home, by the way?”

Iwaizumi drones in recollection, and this goes on even until they’re seated at the waiting area; Oikawa thinks about the many _sumidagawa_ and _tanabata_ he’s missed, and in the cusp of empathizing drifts into deep thoughts himself. Iwaizumi breaks his trance and answers, and to Oikawa, a sense of completeness surges in him.

“Two years ago.”

_This is flight #1425 to Narita, Japan…_

_—_

_“Let’s think of it as a start of a long trip to return home well.”_

**Author's Note:**

> last quote is from the movie _little forest (2018)_. are you guys crying about haikyuu yet? same. hmu @ [sund0wns](https://sund0wns.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


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